Tearful pimp gets 11 1/2 years

PORTLAND, Maine - Pimp Lance Williams wept in Maine's federal court Monday when he was sentenced to 11' years in prison for prostituting a 13-year-old girl at Kittery's Danish Health Club.

Elizabeth Dinan

Date of original publication: December 20, 2005 in The Portsmouth Herald

PORTLAND, Maine - Pimp Lance Williams wept in Maine's federal court Monday when he was sentenced to 11' years in prison for prostituting a 13-year-old girl at Kittery's Danish Health Club.

Prosecutor Todd Lowell told the court that Williams traded another pimp a single cigarette for the 13-year-old girl's name. The following day, Williams drove her to Kittery where she had sex with adult men, left with $800 and turned it all over to Williams, said Lowell.

"She had sex with dozens and dozens of men and gave all of her money to the defendant," said Lowell.

Exceptions, according to the prosecutor, were occasions when Williams gave the girl $20 back, with instructions to buy condoms.

For that, Judge D. Brock Hornby sentenced Williams to the 11'-year federal prison sentence, a $100 penalty assessment and mandated drug treatment. Following his release, Williams will be required to register as a sex offender, face three years of supervised probation and undergo routine drug and polygraph tests.

The sentence followed tearful pleas from Williams' aunt, 85-year-old grandmother and teenage daughter, all asking the court for leniency.

The aunt, Elizabeth Ann Booth, told the judge that Williams was raised by her alcoholic sister, who had a series of abusive live-in boyfriends. Williams' father, said Booth, was a "no-good drug-addict thief of a husband, who had no problem doing drugs in front of their children."

"My sister tried to be a friend to her children, instead of a mother," said Booth, while sobbing. "I feel you're a product of your environment and this is what happens."

Before the hearing, Williams signaled to his "Aunt Betty" by rubbing his fingers against his thumb and mouthing to her that he needed cash.

Williams' elderly grandmother, Laura Jones, said she was unaware of her grandson's criminal activity before Monday's hearing and described him as "the perfect grandson."

One of Williams' teenage daughters, Tobia Williams, cried throughout the proceedings and told the judge her father urged her to get a good education.

Williams told Judge Hornby he would accept any sentence imposed and that he planned to better himself in prison and following his release.

"I tried to emulate people I shouldn't have," he said. "I'm crying because of the hurt I brought on other people. To the girls I was involved (with prostituting), I'm so sorry. That's all I knew."

Williams told the judge he had taken a jailhouse "keyboard" class twice since his April 29 arrest and brought a certificate of completion as evidence. He also said he was "not bitter" following his arrest because of his own grandson.

"If this hadn't happened, he would have come up and seen his grandfather be a pimp," said Williams. "No matter what you sentence me to, Lance Williams will be a better person. Standing in front of you is a man who will change."

Judge Hornby's sentence was lighter than federal guidelines for prostituting a minor, matched with Williams' criminal history as a "career offender." The lessor sentence came in exchange for Williams' testimony during a five-day trial leading to the conviction of Danish Health Club boss, Gary Reiner, on money-laundering and prostitution charges.

Williams' testimony linked Reiner to pimps, prostitutes and prostitution profits, but not the 13-year-old girl.

Williams' brother, Robert, is facing similar charges of pimping a minor in Massachusetts, in part based on the same young victim as the Kittery case. A deposition of that victim, taken by federal agents May 4, says she worked under the name of Jackie Pena and had falsified identification.

At the time she was prostituting in Kittery, between May and December of 2000, the 13-year-old girl also appeared on a national list of missing and exploited children.

That victim chose not to attend Monday's sentencing hearing, Lowell told the court.

Judge Hornby told Williams he had the right to appeal and could do so through the court clerk, immediately following his sentence. In response, Williams shook his head in the negative.

As he was led from the courtroom in shackles, Williams faced his family members and shouted "Love you guys."

Meanwhile, two of his daughters held the certificate of completion from the prison keyboard class.

Reiner, a disbarred lawyer and former Kittery town councilor, is scheduled to be sentenced in February.

Brothel manager Russell Pallas was sentenced to six months in prison, while club bookkeeper, Mary Ann Manzoli, was sentenced to a year of home confinement - in her $900,000 Lynnfield, Mass., home.

Williams' girlfriend and co-defendant, Cheryl Stilwell, is due to be sentenced next month.

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